Poland

The Constitution of 1952

With the adoption of the 1952 document, which
replicated much
of the Soviet Union's 1936 constitution, the Republic of
Poland
was renamed the Polish People's Republic, and the crown
symbolizing national independence was removed from the
country's
flag. The constitution declared that power derived from
the
working people, who by universal suffrage and the secret
ballot
elected their representatives in the Sejm and the regional
and
local people's councils. Like its Soviet counterpart, the
1952
Polish constitution listed in exhaustive detail the basic
rights
and responsibilities of the population. All citizens,
regardless
of nationality, race, religion, sex, level of education,
or
social status, were guaranteed work, leisure, education,
and
health care. The constitution promised freedom of
religion,
speech, the press, assembly, and association, and it
guaranteed
inviolability of the person, the home, and personal
correspondence. As in the Soviet Union, however, the
idealistic
Polish constitution did not deliver the promised
individual
rights and liberties.

Instead, the constitution of 1952 provided a facade of
legitimacy, behind which the PZPR concentrated real
political
power in its central party organs, particularly the
Political
Bureau, usually referred to as the Politburo, and the
Secretariat. The document's ambiguous language concerning
establishment of a state apparatus enabled the PZPR to
bend the
constitution to suit its purposes. The traditional
tripartite
separation of powers among governmental branches was
abandoned.
The constitution allowed the PZPR to control the state
apparatus
"in the interests of the working people." As a result, all
levels
of government were staffed with PZPR-approved personnel,
and
government in fact functioned as the party's
administrative,
subordinate partner.

Between 1952 and 1973, the PZPR-dominated Sejm approved
ten
constitutional amendments concerning the organization and
function of central and local government bodies. In 1976,
after
four years of work by a Sejm constitutional commission,
roughly
one-third of the original ninety-one articles were
amended. The
new version described Poland as a socialist state,
presumably
signifying advancement from its earlier status as a
people's
democracy. For the first time, the constitution
specifically
mentioned the PZPR, which was accorded special status as
the
"guiding political force of society in building
socialism." The
document also recognized the Soviet Union as the liberator
of
Poland from fascism and as the innovator of the socialist
state.
More importantly, the 1976 amendments committed Poland to
a
foreign policy of friendly relations with the Soviet Union
and
its other socialist neighbors. These provisions, which in
effect
surrendered Polish national sovereignty, provoked such
widespread
protest by the intelligentsia and the Roman Catholic
hierarchy
that the government was forced to recast the amendments in
less
controversial terms
(see The Intelligentsia;
Religion
, ch.
2).

In the decade preceding the Round Table Agreement, the
PZPR
endorsed a number of amendments to the 1952 constitution
in a
vain attempt to gain legitimacy with the disgruntled
population.
In the spirit of the Gdansk Agreement of August 1980,
which
recognized workers' rights to establish free trade unions,
the
constitution was amended in October 1980. The amendments
of that
time promised to reduce PZPR influence over the Sejm. For
that
purpose, the Supreme Control Chamber (Najwyzsza Izba
Kontroli--
NIK--chief agency for oversight of the government's
economic and
administrative activities) was transferred from the
Council of
Ministers to the Sejm. In December 1981, the imposition of
martial law temporarily halted the erosion of the party's
constitutional authority. But in March 1982, the
Jaruzelski
regime resumed its effort to appease the public by again
amending
the constitution.

The March 1982 amendments provided for the creation of
two
independent entities, the Constitutional Tribunal and the
State
Tribunal, which had the effect of reestablishing the
traditional
Polish constitutional principle of government by rule of
law. The
1976 amendments had placed adjudication of the
constitutionality
of statutes with the Council of State (chief executive
organ of
the nation). Although the authority of the Constitutional
Tribunal was strictly limited, beginning in 1982 that body
issued
a number of important decisions forcing the repeal of
questionable regulations. The State Tribunal was
established to
adjudicate abuses of power by government officials.
Although
legally prevented from reviewing the activities of Sejm
deputies,
the State Tribunal represented yet another major step in
the
evolution of the democratic concept of government by the
consent
of the governed.

Shortly before the official lifting of martial law in
July
1983, the Sejm enacted additional constitutional changes
that
held the promise of political pluralism. For the first
time, the
United Peasant Party and the Democratic Party officially
were
recognized as legitimate political parties, existing
independently from the PZPR. The amendments also tacitly
sanctioned the political activities of church
organizations by
stressing that public good can derive from "societal
organizations."

Another important step toward meaningful constitutional
guarantees in a civil society was the July 1987 decision
to
establish the Office of the Commissioner for Citizens'
Rights as
a people's ombudsman. The office provided a mechanism for
citizens to file grievances against government organs for
violations of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.
Receiving
more than 50,000 petitions in its first year, the office
immediately proved to be more than a symbolic concession.